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Bulldogs fall to Kennesaw State at Coolray Field

By Staff Reportssports@onlineathens.com – published Tuesday, April 22, 2014

LAWRENCEVILLE | Despite seeing the leadoff batter reach base in five innings, Georgia was unable to give its pitching staff enough support and fell to Kennesaw State 3-1 Tuesday at Coolray Field.

David Sosebee got the start for Georgia after having the rare occurrence of recording a save in his previous outing. The Cleveland native gave up three earned runs on six hits in just three innings of work to take the loss and fall to 0-2 on the season. Chris Erwin earned the win for the Owls, improving to 3-1 overall. Justin McCalvin recorded his eighth save of the season for Kennesaw State.

"It's a long season and you go through some peaks and valleys and we're in one of those now. We have to keep positive, keep fighting and we're going to get right back to work," Georgia coach Scott Stricklin said in a release. "Kennesaw State did a nice job tonight but we still need to find a way to win a game like that. We got eight hits and six of those came from two of our freshmen and that's good to see and we got six scoreless innings out of our bullpen. Bottom line we threw the ball around in that one inning and gave them two runs."

Leading the Bulldogs offensively was Skyler Weber, going 3-for-3 while scoring Georgia's only run. Stephen Wrenn also had a multi-hit game, tying a career-high with three hits in five at bats, and picking up an RBI in the process.

Sosebee found trouble early in the first inning as Kennesaw State catcher Max Pentecost extended his hitting streak to 23 games, slapping an RBI single through the right side of the infield and driving home Jacob Bruce from second after a one out single and stolen base. Sosebee recorded the second out with a sharp move to first to record the Bulldogs' 10th pick-off of the season, as Daniel Nichols slapped down a timely tag to help limit the damage to just one run in the first inning.

Georgia was in position to answer straight back, as the Bulldogs were able to put runners on the corners with two away for Zack Bowers. After a leadoff single by Wrenn, the freshman advanced to second on a fielder's choice off the bat of Conor Welton and, after a walk to Hunter Cole, a fielder's choice put Wrenn 90 feet from home plate and Nelson Ward on first. Bowers, however, was unable to bring home the tying run, and the Bulldogs went to the second inning down a run.

Georgia returns to action this weekend as it travels to Nashville for a weekend series with Vanderbilt. Game one is slated for 7:30 p.m.

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